With transport companies like Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft on the rise, there are still some who believe that car ownership is going nowhere. One person who shares this view is the man who is responsible for selling more cars than everyone else this year.
Carlos Ghosn who is the chairman of the partnership between Renault SA, Nissan Motor Co., and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. stated that the global vehicle sales will not shrink, rather it will continue to expand. This was despite the challenges they face from ride-sharing companies springing up. This assessment is true due to the fact that other means of transportation has only little impact on the global economy compared to auto sales.
Ghosn during an interview stated that “A lot of people think this is a substitution. It’s not — it’s addition. The traditional business of building cars and selling cars and owning cars is going to continue.” He made this comment during an interview with Bloomberg yesterday.
His prediction is contradictory to what analyst are expecting. According to analysts, the emergence of ride-sharing services like Uber and the upcoming introduction of self-driving cars will see affect the traditional auto sales industry that is worth roughly $2 trillion per year. Ghosn further stated that the demand for automobiles in advanced countries like U.S, Europe, and Japan are stable but due to population, countries like China and India will continue to experience an increase in the market.
The three groups that Ghosn chairs is expected to sell over 10 million cars and trucks in 2017, as they look to challenge other heavyweights like Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. in terms of highest sales in the industry. The partnership between the three companies is expecting the annual sales to increase to 14 million by the year 2022.
Ghosn stated that “The growth is going to be here because the first thing people aspire to is an autonomous way of transportation. I have absolutely no doubt on the fact that in the long term, we’re going continue to see an evolution and the development of globalization,” which is “here to stay,” he added.
He further stated that “It’s going to change, it’s going to modernize, it’s going to adapt, but there’s no way you’re going to put the economy back behind borders and you’re going to build walls. Because frankly, this is not the way history is going, and it’s certainly not the way wealth can be created and people can benefit.”
